


Gentle

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-08-23 14:26:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16620740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: “You are here, for as short as you want, as long as you wish.”





	Gentle

 

You aren’t exactly known for being gentle. It is not something anyone has ever associated with you, and for the most part, you’re fine with it. With this reputation for being a bit rough, a bit roguish.

It doesn’t lend to many lingering bed mates, but you’ve never been one to stay more than one night anywhere.

But he is different. Or, maybe you are different with him. He’s not gentle, with his sharp elbows and his knobby knees. His tendency to trip over himself and others, to fall into everyone’s space.

He bruises your nose when he’s telling a story and he’s so apologetic with broad hands cupping your face. He’s got calluses and it surprises you. It shouldn’t with all of the armour he polishes and laundry he scrubs and equipment he carries. But his hands are not soft, are not smooth, but they fit around your jaw perfectly.

You think that is the first time you want to linger in the morning, and you haven’t even spent the night.

He doesn’t see you, not at first. He sees the prince sees the king he might become, and everything about him is wrapped up in that idea. You’re okay with it, you tell yourself, with being his confidant. Because it means he trust you, when he comes to complain about the one-day-king. He loves him. Loves him so deeply you sometimes wonder if he is in love with him.

He’s careful with his one-day-king. So careful you find yourself being careful too. You curve the edges of your tongue so they don’t cut as deeply. You pull your punches so the bruises don’t linger.

But when the one-day-king attacks him, when he reduces him to tears over an insignificant slight, you find yourself drawing lines. You do not support the one-day-king the way you support him and you know, when he’s cradles in your arms, when silent tears leak against your shirt, which of them you’d follow.

He doesn’t say anything about the way your fingers twist in his hair, or the way your lips linger against his temples.

But he returns to you, cheeks flushed and eyes alight. He tells you of a quest, one so pointless and dangerous. Something only an angry child would undertake. You laugh, tell him ‘he is an angry child.” But he pouts and he won’t look at you and his dimples are hidden for days until you tackle him in the stables.

You tickle him, fingers ghosting under his shirt and over his ribs until tears darken the hay, until he is breathless and panting beneath you. You feel a rush in your belly and suddenly this seems wrong, the way he’s trapped beneath you.

You leave, quickly, ignoring the squawk of hurt he makes, because he cannot know, cannot see how he affect you. It’s unfair, to burden him that way.

You get drunk, spend two weeks in the tavern and in the beds of faces you will never remember. The one-day-king finds you, drags you to the training pitch and he isn’t gentle either. You’ve been in fights with thugs who were kinder. He doesn’t break your bones, but it's a damn near thing, and then you’re on your back, chest heaving, ribs screaming, the one-day-king puts the blunt tip of his sword against your throat and hisses “fix it.”

You wish you knew what you were meant to fix.

He doesn’t seem different, when he finds you, when he’s rubbing ointment into your arms. He chatters on about his day, about the cooks, about the inconsistencies in the prince's moods. He’s fingers, rough and firm, skitter over you in a rapid tattoo, never pausing for long.

You want to feel the warmth of them, want them to skid across your skin with the same reverence they polish practice swords.

That is to say you want to feel them everyway, everywhere.

You kiss him, then. You don’t even let him finish speaking before you’re gripping his chin in your fingers, pulling plump lips down to yours. He doesn’t even hesitate. He lets you lick right into his mouth, and then it’s a battle for dominance.

You’ve years of training though, and you’re sore and he is broad but you get him under you and you hold him there with your hips.

He laughs against your mouth, and it’s a rough, rumbling sound echoing in the small room, around your ribs. You wonder, for a moment, can he feel the thudding of your heart beneath the hand tracing the curls of your chest.

He shifts, brushes against you, and you lose the train of thought. You slip the cloth from around his neck, sink your teeth into his pulse points and he catches the noise in the back of his throat, one hand on your waist, the other slipping beneath your shirt.

He stops you then, storm-blue eyes wide and serious. “Is this just for the hour?”

You are not known for being gentle. But you cup his face in your hands, trace his cheeks with your thumbs, Your voice is quiet when you speak, because you understand you have the power to shatter him now.

“You are here, for as short as you want, as long as you wish.”

  
  



End file.
